No. 220. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1710.

Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui,
Ultrà quàm satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.

HOR. EPIST. i. 6. 15.

Even virtue, when pursued with warmth extreme,
Turns into vice, and fools the sage's fame.

FRANCIS.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 4.

HAVING received many letters filled with compliments and acknowledgements for my late useful discovery of the political Barometer, I shall here communicate to the public an account of my ecclesiastical Thermometer, the latter giving as manifest prognostications of the changes and revolutions in church, as the former does of those in state; and both of them being absolutely necessary for every prudent subject who is resolved to keep what he has, and get what he can.

The church Thermometer, which I am now to treat of, is supposed to have been invented in the reign of Henry the Eighth, about the time when that religious prince put some to death for owning the Pope's supremacy, and others for denying transubstantiation. I do not find, however, any great use made of this instrument, till it fell into the hands of a learned and vigilant priest or minister, for he frequently wrote himself both one and the other, who was some time Vicar of Bray. This gentleman lived in his vicarage to a good old :

age;

and, after having seen several successions of his neighbouring clergy either burned or banished, departed this life with the satisfaction of having never deserted his flock, and died vicar of Bray. As this glass was first designed to calculate the different degrees of heat in religion, as it raged in popery, or as it cooled and grew temperate in the Reformation; it was marked at several distances, after the manner our ordinary thermometer is to this day, viz. Extreme Heat, Sultry Heat, Very Hot, Hot, Warm, Temperate, Cold, Just Freezing, Frost, Hard Frost, Great Frost, Extreme Cold.'

It is well known that Torricellius, the inventor of the common weather-glass, made the experiment in a long tube which held thirty-two foot of water; and that a more modern virtuoso, finding such a machine altogether unweildy and useless, and considering that thirty-two inches of quicksilver weighed as much as so many feet of water in a tube of the same circumference, invented that sizable instrument which is now in use. After this manner, that I might adapt the Thermometer I am now speaking of to the present constitution of our Church, as divided into High and Low, I have made some necessary variations both in the tube and the fluid it contains. In the first place, I ordered a tube to be cast in a planetary hour, and took care to seal it hermetically, when the Sun was in conjunction with Saturn. I then took the proper precautions about the fluid, which is a compound of two very different liquors; one of them a spirit drawn out of a strong heady wine; the other a particular sort of rockwater, colder than ice, and clearer than crystal. The spirit is of a red fiery colour, and so very apt to ferment, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the water, or pent up very close, it will burst the

vessel that holds it, and fly up in fume and smoke. The water, on the contrary, is of such a subtle piercing cold, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the spirits, it will sink almost through every thing that it is put into: and seems to be of the same nature as the water mentioned by Quintus Curtius, which, says the historian, could be contained in nothing but in the hoof, or, as the Oxford manuscript has it, in the scull of an ass. The Thermometer is marked according to the following figure; which I set down at length, not only to give my reader a clear idea of it, but also to fill up my paper. Ignorance.

Persecution.
Wrath.

Zeal.
CHURCH.

Moderation.

Lukewarmness.

Infidelity.
Ignorance.

The reader will observe, that the Church is placed in the middle point of the glass, between Zeal and Moderation; the situation in which she always flourishes, and in which every good Englishman wishes her, who is a friend to the constitution of his country. However, when it mounts to Zeal, it is not amiss; and, when it sinks to Moderation, is still in a most admirable temper. The worst of it is, that when it once begins to rise, it has still an inclination to ascend; insomuch that it is apt to climb up from Zeal to Wrath, and from Wrath to Persecution, which always ends in Ignorance, and very often proceeds from it. In the same manner it frequently takes its progress through the lower half of the glass; and, when it has a tendency to fall, will

gradually descend from Moderation to Lukewarmness, and from Lukewarmness to Infidelity, which very often terminates in Ignorance, and always proceeds from it.

It is a common observation, that the ordinary Thermometer will be affected by the breathing of people who are in the room where it stands; and indeed it is almost incredible to conceive, how the glass I am now describing will fall by the breath of a multitude crying Popery; or, on the contrary, how it will rise when the same multitude, as it sometimes happens, cry out in the same breath, The Church is in danger.'

As soon as I had finished this my glass, and adjusted it to the above-mentioned scale of religion; that I might make proper experiments with it, I carried it under my cloak to several coffee-houses, and other places of resort about this great city. At St. James's coffee-house the liquor stood at Moderation: but at Will's, to my great surprise, it subsided to the very lowest mark on the glass. At the Grecian it mounted but just one point higher; at the Rainbow it still ascended two degrees; Child's fetched it up to Zeal; and other adjacent coffeehouses to Wrath.

It fell into the lower half of the glass as I went further into the city, till at length it settled at Moderation, where it continued all the time I staid about the Exchange, as also while I passed by the Bank. And here I cannot but take notice, that through the whole course of my remarks, I never observed my glass to rise at the same time the stocks did.

To complete the experiment, I prevailed upon a friend of mine, who works under me in the occult sciences, to make a progress with my glass through the whole island of Great Britain and after his

return, to present me with a register of his observations. I guessed before-hand at the temper of several places he passed through, by the characters they have had time out of mind. Thus that facetious divine, Dr. Fuller, speaking of the town of Banbury near a hundred years ago, tells us, it was a place famous for cakes and zeal, which I find by my glass is true to this day, as to the latter part of this description; though I must confess, it is not in the same reputation for cakes that it was in the time of that learned author; and thus of other places. In short, I have now by me, digested in an alphabetical order, all the counties, corporations, and boroughs, in Great Britain, with their respective tempers, as they stand related to my Thermometer. But this I shall keep to myself, because I would by no means do any thing that may seem to influence any ensuing elections.

The point of doctrine which I would propagate by this my invention is the same which was long ago advanced by that able teacher Horace, out of whom I have taken my text for this discourse. We should be careful not to over-shoot ourselves in the pursuits even of virtue. Whether Zeal or Moderation be the point we aim at, let us kcep fire out of the one, and frost out of the other. But, alas! the world is too wise to want such a precaution. The terms High Church and Low Church, as commonly used, do not so much denote a principle, as they distinguish a party. They are like words of battle, they have nothing to do with their original signification; but are only given out to keep a body of men together, and to let them know friends from enemies.

I must confess I have considered, with some little attention, the influence which the opinions of these great national seets have upon their practice; and do